The personal blog of Peter Lee a.k.a. "China Hand"... Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel, and an open book to those who read. You are welcome to contact China Matters at the address chinamatters --a-- prlee.org or follow me on twitter @chinahand.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Today the Guardian in its trademark handwringing fashion is
marking the fourth anniversary of the Syrian conflict: 200,000 dead, 3.5
million refugees.

The Guardian should also commemorate three and a half years
of bloodshed, destruction, and misery inflicted upon Syria by the United
States, the EU, and the GCC—make that murder, war crimes, and collective
punishment IMO--much of it enthusiastically endorsed by the Guardian and its
media brethren.

Think I’m exaggerating?But first read the piece (reproduced below) that I wrote in November
2011, when it was clear that the domestic uprising was headed for defeat and
the West and GCC faced the crucial choice whether to let Assad cobble together
some reconciliatory process…or try to bring him down with a foreign-supported
insurrection.

We all know—or should know—what choice was made.

And we should know—but probably don’t know—the actual cost.

Consider these numbers: 7,000…and 193,000.

7,000 is the estimated death count for the Syrian unrest
after the Syrian government had crushed the rebel enclave in Homs in February
2012 and shattered the domestic uprising.

193,000 is the death toll since then…since the United
States, the GCC, Turkey, and their enablers began pumping money, arms, and diplomatic
support into the various Syria-based paramilitaries that eventually encompassed
not only the hapless Free Syrian Army but Al-Qaeda, IS, and their affiliates
and allies.

When you read my piece, you’ll see some bad pennies turning
up again.Like Victoria Nuland, charged
with inciting the Syrian opposition to ignore reconciliation.Like Abdelhakim Belhadj who, on his long
march from anti-Qaddafi Islamist to reputed head of IS Libya, shows up in
Turkey to succor the Syrian opposition.

A lot of death…a lot of murder…has been packed into those 3 ½
years.

7,000 versus 193,000.

As I mentioned on my twitter feed, I wonder if there’s any
second thoughts in the US State Department about spurning the reconciliation
route in Syria.

I doubt it.The US
foreign policy regime deals in consequences, not causes, so it can shirk
responsibility for its failures and claim victories instead.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

The Syrian Revolution Hijacked

Mass demonstrations never materialized in
Damascus and Aleppo. The military and security forces didn’t crack.
The Alawite on Sunni crackdown (Alawites form the backbone of the
army/security forces/irregular goon squads) fomented sectarian
divisions, with most non-Sunnis minorities cleaving desperately to the
Assad regime. Prosperous Sunnis have presumably been hedging their bets
by donating to the anti-government cause in recent days but have not
explicitly abandoned the regime.

The Gulf powers and the West would have
welcomed a Ba’athist regime collapse at the hand of domestic
anti-government demonstrations.

That didn’t happen.

As the peaceful democratic movement has faltered, there has been
no move from the Western/Gulf powers to encourage reconciliation and
reforms.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

Whenever Assad makes an offer of reform, the Western powers dismiss it as too late and/or insincere.

Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson, counseled Syrian
dissidents to defy the Assad regime’s offer of an amnesty in return for
handing in illegal weapons, as the LA Times reported:

Syria accused Washington of
"inciting sedition, supporting the acts of killing and terrorism," the
official Syrian news agency said, quoting an official source at the
Foreign Ministry.

…
The comments came a day after State Department spokeswoman Victoria
Nuland declared that she would counsel Syrians to reject the amnesty, in
which those the government terms arms violators were asked to turn
themselves in with their weapons "to the nearest police station" during a
one-week period that began Saturday. Those who surrender and have not
killed anyone "will be released soon," the Interior Ministry vowed.

"I wouldn't advise anybody to turn themselves in to regime authorities at the moment," Nuland told reporters in Washington.

Nuland, by the way, is married to PNACer and neocon pundit Robert
Kagan. Recalling Dick Cheney's enthusiasm for driving to Damascus
post-Iraqi Freedom, maybe we should call the Syria enterprise Clean Break II: The Do-Over.

Anyway, democracy didn't work. Time for Plan B.

The foreign powers interested in Assad’s fall—and
stripping Iran of a regional ally--have made the decision to piggyback a
foreign-supported, foreign-funded insurrection on the faltering
anti-government movement.

More accurately, the democratic revolution
is now an uncertain and unwilling passenger on the Gulf-funded military
machine rumbling toward Damascus.

Havens for anti-Assad fighters have materialized in Turkey, and arms and money are flooding in from all over the place.

Weapons and money for anti-Assad insurrectionists has been trickling in for months, to the blissful disregard of western news outlets fixated on the images of democracy demonstrators struggling against oppression.

Now that the political option is sliding off the table and it is clear a
foreign-funded insurrection is needed to remove the Assad regime, the
gusher of arms and cash has become too big to ignore.

But the story doesn’t require old-fashioned reporting anymore.

Just go down to a Turkish foreign ministry presser for tea, cookies, and a targeted backgrounder.

Turkey has positioned itself as the indispensable Western/Gulf proxy on Syria’s northern border.

Iran’s IRNA news agency passed on a report
in Turkey’s Millyet tabloid a major Turkish news outlet. IRNA is
sometimes selective and/or inaccurate in its presentation of
international news, so I’m passing it on with a caveat, but the report
as presented passes the smell test for me:

According
to Milliyet, as cited by IRNA, France has sent its military training
forces to Turkey and Lebanon to coach the so-called Free Syrian Army -- a
group of defectors operating out of Turkey and Lebanon -- in an effort
to wage war against Syria's military.

The report added that the French, British, and Turkish authorities “have reached an agreement to send arms into Syria.”

The Turkish daily said that the three have informed the US about training and arming the Syrian opposition.

According to Milliyet, a group of armed rebels are currently stationed in Turkey's Hatay Province near the border with Syria.

The report comes as an earlier report had revealed that the British and
French intelligence agencies have reportedly tasked their agents with
contacting Syrian dissidents based in the northern Lebanese town of
Tripoli in order to help fuel unrest in Syria.

Reports also said that French intelligence agents have been sent to
northern Lebanon and Turkey to build the first contingents of the Free
Syrian Army out of the deserters who have fled Syria.

For those of you who prefer to get your Turkey/Syria news from a reliable Crusader source, here’s an eyebrow-raising item from the Daily Telegraph, albeit via Hurryet on November 27:

Syrian dissidents held
secret talks Nov. 25 with Libya’s new authorities and Turkish
authorities in Istanbul with the aim of securing weapons and money for
their insurgency against Damascus, the Daily Telegraph has reported.

Syrian opposition group
requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered
arms, and potentially volunteers, during the meeting, the daily reported
Nov. 25.

“There is something being
planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” a Libyan
source said on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention
on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Preliminary discussions about
arms supplies took place when members of the Syrian National Council
(SNC) – the country’s main opposition movement – visited Libya earlier
this month, said the daily.

“The Libyans are offering money,
training and weapons to the Syrian National Council,” said Wisam Taris,
a human rights campaigner with links to the SNC. Last month, Libya’s
interim government became the first in the world to recognize Syria’s
opposition movement as the country’s “legitimate authority.”

Large shipments of weapons have not yet been sent, said activists, mainly because of logistical difficulties.

But proposals for a “buffer
zone” inside Syria, monitored by the Arab League, or the likely
emergence of an area inside the country controlled entirely by rebels,
could solve this problem. “The [Libyan] council’s offer is serious,”
said Taris.

Sources in the Libyan town of
Misrata suggested that some weapons may already have been sent. Some
smugglers were caught selling small arms to Syrian buyers in Misrata,
said a man who trafficked guns to Libya’s rebels during the country’s
civil war.

Libyans feel closely aligned to the Syrian cause, said Hameda al-Mageri, from the Tripoli Military Council.

The Tripoli Military Council is the creature of Islamist strongman Abdelhakim Belhadj.

Belhadj is the preferred in-Libya muscle of the Gulf States—“proxy” is
perhaps not too strong a term. He recently found it expedient to issue a non-denial denial that Qatar had dispatched nine planeloads of arms to Tripoli for the exclusive use of his forces.

Belhadj was denied a seat in the new Libyan cabinet thanks to Western
anxiety over any overtly Islamist tinge to the proceedings. In an
inspiring demonstration of the give-and-take of new Libyan democracy, a
representative from Zintan was able to leverage his town’s continued and
suspiciously prolonged local custody of Saif Qaddafi into a winning bid
for the defense slot.

Instead, Belhadj now has the opportunity to pursue profitable mischief
in Syria on behalf of the Gulf states and their anti Sh’ia/anti-Iranian
counter revolution (and perhaps dissipating the intimidating shadow of
Belhadj and a number of his well-trained and hardened fighters from the
streets of Tripoli).

In an amusing sideline, Belhadj--presumably on his way to the Istanbul
meeting--got a friendly hazing at the airport from his Zintan buddies.
The brief detention was noted by the local Libyan press; the thing about
the money was apparently glossed by a pro-Gaddafi website (they still exist!):

The battalion of Zintan
men has arrested him after the discovery that the passport is
registered with the competent authorities and carrying fake name.

After the arrest the rebels received a call from the President of the Council Mustafa Abdul Jalil asking the Alzentan and officials at the airport in Tripoli to allow Hakim Belhaj to leave the country, thishas been found on the large sum of money inside the bag Khuwaildi Belhadj.

The democratic revolution ship has sailed. What’s going on today is a foreign-supported insurrection.

The Chinese and the Russians have a clear-eyed understanding of what’s going on.

The PRC is loath to get on the wrong side of Saudi Arabia, its largest energy supplier, by going too far to defend Syria.

Moscow, which has a real stake in its Iran alliance and cares about the fate of Assad’s regime, has shown no such qualms.

A selection of headlines from RIA Novosti gives an idea of what a
responsible multi-lateral response on Syria—as opposed to a hurried
military ass-kicking enabled by global anti-Iranian forces meant to
obscure the failure of a peaceful "color revolution"—would have looked
like:

As to where this all ends up, I will outsource the increasingly plausible endgame--Turkey is ready to invade Syria--to the estimable M. Badhrakumar of Asia Times (and his personal blog, Indian Punchline):

Turkey and its western allies are transferring the Libyan fighters
whom they trained and armed to depose Muammar Gaddafi to Syria. Around
600 Libyan ‘volunteers’ have entered Syria. Daily Telegraph reported that
secret meetings were held on Friday in Istanbul between the Turkish
officials and the Syrian opposition representatives and the Libyan
fighters. Large-scale infiltration of weapons from Turkey and Jordan
have been going on for months to create civil-war conditions in Syria,
but this is the first move to introduce ‘volunteers’.

The move is necessitated by the failure to
induce defections form the Syrian armed forces, except a mere
handful. Turkey and the western powers are desperate to create the myth
of a ‘Syrian resistance’ force without which their blatant aggression
will be in full display.

…

Things seem to be heading for a flash point, indeed. The sure sign is that US V-P Joseph Biden is heading for Ankara
in the weekend. It is a major signal of the US giving the go-ahead to
Turkey to act on Syria without fear. Again, Jordanian King, Abdullah,
travelled to israel. He is Saudi Arabia’s ‘back channel’ to Israel and a
key regional ally for the western intelligence.

Turkey is indeed shedding its fear of the unknown and is coming out into the open on the Syrian situation. Turkish FM Ahmet Davitoglu indicated today
for the first time that Turkey is all set for invasion of Syria once it
gets the green signal from its western allies. He said this before
heading for the combined meeting of EU foreign ministers and Arab League
representatives (read Saudi Arabia and Qatar).

The day Davutoglu spoke, November 29, will
stand out as a notable date in the chronicle of the Turkish Republic
that Kemal Ataturk founded. Ataturk’s ‘red line’ used to be that Turkey
should never get entangled in the affairs of the Muslim Middle East but
should instead concentrate on its own ‘modernization’. Evidently, the
Islamist government in power today thinks Turkey is today ‘modern’
enough already and can now go back and reclaim its Ottoman legacy.

A Turkish army moving into an Arab country -
it is a historic point. It is a century after the Turks were driven out
by the ‘Arab revolt’. The matrix is dripping with irony. The Arab revolt
against the Turks was instigated by Great Britain. And Britain,
although a far weaker power today, is still playing a seminal role -
except, it is encouraging the Turks to return to the Arab world. One
hundred years ago, Britain successfully pitted the Arabs against the
Turks. Today, Turks join hands with some Arabs who have a grouse against
some other Arabs.

The Syrian revolutionaries were too weak to get the nation they wanted.

They’ll have to make do with whatever state that Turkey, the Gulf powers, and the western democracies decide to give them.